Posts Tagged ‘Kingswood’

When I was younger I used to believe in the supernatural – ghosts and the zodiac, stuff like that. I was fascinated by it all, but as I grew older I sorta decided that maybe some people had access to powers and things that the majority of us couldn’t see, but I just didn’t and that was that. I concentrated on what was concrete and tangible.

Nevertheless, I think that as humans we all have intuition and sometimes we have a sixth sense. I knew that everything was going too smoothly – I had got a new job, had found a buyer for my car, and had put down a deposit on a flat that was perfectly located between Toby’s flat and my new place of work. I have yet to hear from the landlord about when I sign the contract, but I figure that no news is good news as it means that he hasn’t changed his mind about renting the flat to me. (Did I mention I am a bit of a pessimist?) I was originally going to text him this weekend to let him know that I am around to sign the contract, but I decided against it as I don’t want to nag and put him off me. If I haven’t demonstrated by this point that I am organised (I met him the following day after viewing the flat to give him bank statements, a look at my new employment contract with my employer’s address and phone number, a copy of my driving licence, and the holding deposit and admin fee), then whatever. But at the moment, I am not feeling too worried about the flat – I’m kinda “c’est la vie” about it all.

But I felt that as I got closer and closer to the last day of driving my car (which is this coming Thursday), I knew that I wouldn’t get away without something going wrong. Every day that I drove it to work, I would say to myself “You only have X days of work left, so try not to crash it!” I haven’t crashed it. Then I drove up to London yesterday, and I was dreading this because I haven’t done so in quite a long time, and the last time I drove back from London, my door nearly fell off. But I just had to make one journey there and back. I drove up last night, and lo and behold, nothing bad happened. I drove successfully, and remarked about how crazy some of the other drivers on the M4 are! I met Toby once he finished work and we went home and had a lovely lamb moussaka for dinner. Then (because Toby’s street has controlled parking on a Saturday), I went to move my car to a street a few blocks away, so that I could park for free on Saturday (today).

This is when the problems struck – just when I thought everything was fine. As I was parking my car, suddenly the exhaust started making a very loud rattling noise. It made a similar (but quieter) noise once I picked it up from its MOT back in June, but Mike and I fixed it. But now it sounded horrendous. I got Toby to come and have a listen, and he said it was definitely the exhaust. And at this point, I just KNEW that this was the disaster that I had been waiting for. I knew that my car would not leave my presence without causing me one last problem, one last headache, and bleed one last lot of money out of me. I took it to Kwik Fit this morning, and they were supremely unhelpful and told me “It’s the heat shield. It’s not dangerous. It’s not worth spending the money to fix it.” They looked at my car for a total of 3 minutes. I was unsatisfied by this – how am I supposed to sell a car that makes such a fucking huge noise? If it were me buying it, I certainly wouldn’t – no matter how much the seller insisted “Honestly, it’s not dangerous!!!”

So I took it to another garage, who had a look at it and tightened some stuff up so that the noise was diminished (it does sound better now). They have recommended that I take the car back to the Car Clinic in Kingswood (where they originally fitted the new exhaust during my MOT) as they hadn’t done something properly, and it is their place to sort it. I have the receipt for when they did the exhaust as part of the MOT, and I am sure that they will not charge me much (if anything – after all, it is their mistake!) – however, I am also prepared that they might not believe that they are at fault as otherwise I should have reported the issue the first time it was rattling, instead of Mike and I fixing it ourselves. We’ll see what happens. Hopefully I will get back to Bristol in one piece – the car still drives fine, it’s just noisy in low gears. So hopefully if I am driving quickly along the motorway, it won’t make much noise.

What I am trying to say is that sometimes, when things seem to be going too smoothly, we need to be on our guard! I knew that my car would screw me over one last time before I got rid of it. I now have to somehow find the time between now and Wednesday to take my car to my local garage and get it fixed. I felt so guilty for ruining mine and Toby’s morning – which is ridiculous, because there is hardly anything I could have done to have prevented this, and my car is a law unto itself. It’s not my fault. But it is my car, and if I want to sell it on, I have to take responsibility for it and get it fixed. My intuition told me that my car would not let me go so easily. So I advise everyone to listen to your sixth sense, and be on your guard as misfortune can strike at any time.

And I also advise you not to buy a Vauxhall car, and to buy as new a car as possible / affordable, because in theory then you should have less problems with it! This car has been nothing but a drain on both my finances and my happiness, and while I have enjoyed driving (sometimes), the past 7 months of owning this car has overall been hellish. I will not be sorry to see it go, and now that I’ll be living in London, I am looking forward to making the most of a decent public transport system. It will hopefully be a long time before I own a car again – and next time, I will have a lot more money at my disposal and buy something much better and more reliable.

When I am on my driving lessons, my driving instructor (who lives around the corner from me and has done for the whole of my lifetime and probably many years prior to that) often points out people who he knows, chats about the various people who have lived and continue to live in certain houses and streets, and talks about life in Kingswood in general. Most of the time, I can only nod my assent because I have no idea whom or what he is talking about; I only know the names and faces of the people who live within 3 doors of our house and across the road from it. On the odd occasion that I am walking around the local area, I could quite happily walk past people who live on my street without recognising them. This street is not and has never been a community to me; my town is just a place I live, and although it’s adequate (I like the fact that unlike other, more wealthy areas of the city, it doesn’t have a ‘grey’ atmosphere and I can see the sky – I’m not a total urbanite then!), I don’t feel any sense of community with the other people who live there; in fact, I feel like more of an alien (and with my dress sense, I look like one too). I must add that I will stick up for where I come from, despite its chavvy, slightly dangerous reputation; I did get slightly offended by a comment made by one of the people on my careers guidance course at UWE; being a graduate of Spanish and French, I was asked “But in Kingswood, you don’t get an opportunity to practise your languages, do you?” This comment was accompanied by a smirk; I took slight offence because although it’s true that where I live is not a cultural hub and I don’t meet many people who are multi-lingual there, Kingswood is not formative of who I am. Moreover, it’s not a bad place, and given that the area of Bristol that this person comes from is more renowned for crime and poverty than mine, it’s somewhat hypocritical and condescending.

Anyway, I went to Peterborough to spend the weekend with Toby last weekend, and I had a wonderful time, but I noticed that for him, life and his sense of community is different: he knows all of the people who live in his close and a lot of those who live in his village. He went to school up the road from his house; he can point out many people in the photographs included in the local Parish News (I am unaware of Kingswood having a Parish News leaflet, or any kind of worthwhile community publication). It is interesting that I cannot do this. I always went to school on the other side of the city, because my parents paid for my education and decided to send me to those schools (and based on my subsequent track record and academic success, I can’t quibble with their decision – it was pretty wise and with hindsight I would now have done the exact same thing). When I went through a brief phase of playing with the family of girls who were my age and lived across the road from me, they had a group of kids who lived in the neighbouring streets as their friends: I knew none of these people because they all went to the same school down the road from our house; I went to a private school across the city. We had different school holidays, different teachers, different friendship groups, different subjects. In retrospect, that was most definitely for the best but at the time it felt like I had to work extra hard to fit in with them. Despite living across the street, it was like I was visiting another world, their world, every time we would play together, and after a couple of years the visit wouldn’t be worth it, and we would just say hi without animosity as we occasionally passed each other on the street.

However, whereas Toby can name all of his neighbours and various people who live in his village (and I also understand that part of this is the difference between city / country-ish mentalities), I enjoy my popularity when I wander round the Bristol city centre – Mike commented once on a shopping excursion that it seemed as if I knew at least one person in every single shop (and there are a lot of shops). This is an exaggeration of course, but not a massive one; I like shopping and I used to work in retail in that area, therefore my face is recognised in the area and I can recognise acquaintances who work there too. An amusing story is the Guess Boutique – whenever I go in the staff are extra-happy to see me because they still remember the time Toby & I went in and I fell in love with a bag that I could not afford; Toby & I left and I spent the whole of that Friday night babbling about the bag. Saturday lunchtime we returned to the store and I bought not only that bag that I had originally claimed was “too expensive” but also a hoodie to boot (it was on sale, there was only one and it was in my size, it was black and gold which are my colours – it was obviously fate so who am I to stand against destiny?). I don’t know if the staff there work on commission but I think that that day, they were very happy! So I make friends in shops. My friends who live in Bristol may have gone to school or university with me, but we came from all different parts of Bristol (and their experiences of commuting to find a community may be quite similar to mine) so urban centres, shopping districts, cafés and cinemas are our meeting points.

My point is, I have my own community of people whom I call my friends; friends are the family you can choose, as they say. However, my friends are all dotted about the city (and beyond that, the country); the way we keep in touch is via telephone, email and internet most of the time; and when we want to meet in person, it’s got to be an arranged thing rather than a spontaneous wander down the road. Although it can feel slightly isolating living where you have no real connection to anyone else in the immediate vicinity, it’s made irrelevant by the fact that I can speak to and arrange to see a lot of my friends within very little time; and that my friends are so, so good to me. I think that having my own space is something that I value too; at the end of the day, I can retreat to my home and have a little time for me, safe in the knowledge that I’m not going to bump into or be harassed by anyone who knows me. I can be anonymous, think independently, live as I choose without any fear of anyone whom I care about judging me. I know that in Kingswood, I dress differently, I wear different clothes, I speak and think differently to the majority. I would never change that; I like being my own person and I won’t ever change to conform (a hard lesson that built my character during my school years). But it’s made easier when I’m surrounded by people with whom I have absolutely no desire to fit in. My community, the people whom I love and value, are my friends; my community is not local but instead city-wide, national, and one day I hope it will be global.

I just got home from my nan’s. For the second part of my journey, I took the number 6 from town to Kingswood, and while I was on the bus, a group of Somali women were having a conversation. Suddenly, an English woman (I’m guessing about 55 years old; she was certainly older than my mother, who is 50) turns around and yells at them “Would you please shut up?!?!” After everyone looks up, shocked, she continues her diatribe: “Natter natter (with hand gesture), shut the fuck up or get off the bus.” The women began to protest, but the woman just got angrier and nastier, and the Somali women ended up getting off the bus at that stop. The English woman yelled after them “Fucking go home to your own country!” After a beat of shocked silence from all the passengers, the driver (who was mixed race himself) got up and challenged the woman. “They are allowed to chat if they want, everyone here is just trying to get home, there is no reason to disrupt anyone else’s journey or otherwise YOU will have to get off the bus.” At this point, the woman went to get off the bus, and the bus driver said “Ma’am, you can take your seat, but please respect other customers because we all paid to use this bus, and please enjoy your journey.” The woman sat back down, but then got off at the next stop (I wonder if she was not too bothered about getting off the bus if she was only getting off at the next stop anyway?), and the rest of the bus breathed a sigh of relief.

I was shocked that in 2010, such blatant racism still exists. Well, I am shocked and I am not; I’m not naive and I know very well that racism is very much alive and well, but I was shocked to be present at such an outrageous and blatant display of it. I was tempted to say something myself, but at the same time it was not my place to get involved; these women are old enough and strong enough to defend themselves, and quite rightly the driver made a stand for his bus and for the passengers on it; he is running the service, not me or any of the other passengers. I wonder however, if the driver had not said anything, whether I would have been brave enough to say something? Plenty of things sprang to my mind; to challenge her and say that if her problem was with the volume at which these women were speaking, then instead of yelling at them and thus making herself a hypocrite, she should just ask them politely if they could talk more quietly. If this wasn’t the case, it would have exposed her own racism without saying any more (racism she already exposed with her parting comment to them as they got off the bus). I felt like saying that if her problem was with the fact that these women were not English (I know this woman was English just by coincidence, as I saw her loudly supporting England at Rewind when I was out watching the game with my friends from uni on Friday night – she had memorable cuts and grazes on her elbow that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the same woman), then should I get off the bus too as I am half-Italian, and I would not be here if my family had not come from another country to live here? Until she knows the story of these Somali woman, who is she to judge whether they have (on a journey which they paid for, just like the rest of the passengers) less of a right to be on the bus and talk on the bus than her? If I were speaking to my friends in Spanish, French or Italian, would I be less entitled to talk on the bus than if I were speaking in English? Does the fact that my skin barely looks any different to an English person’s (I am a tiny tiny bit more tanned, but it’s negligible) mean that I am not as mixed-race, or as ethnically diverse, as someone with a different skin colour? Am I entitled to the same rights as an English person simply because I speak native English, have an English surname and my skin is light; in return for these rights do I have to sacrifice my own ethnic background in the process just to fit in?

When I lived in Spain, if someone had spoken to me in that way because I was speaking English on the phone or to my family, I would have been utterly outraged. Are we literally rewinding back to the story of Rosa Parks on the bus in the USA, before Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement? It felt like it. Another thing I wanted to point out was that, as a result of my colleague Clare’s presentation on breaking down cultural barriers in guidance, I know that Bristol is considered a popular (if that is the right word) destination for asylum seekers and refugees coming from all over the world, because it is considered a racially-tolerant city in England. This is my hometown, my city, and I am proud of that fact. By demonstrating such a racially-intolerant attitude, this woman is not only giving a bad example of herself, but of Bristol as a city and of England as a country; in actual fact, she is making herself look stupid and only propagating bad feeling for foreign people, whatever their reason or length of stay in England, which in turn only reinforces cultural barriers rather than breaking them down. We’re in 2010; this should never have been happening, but it should certainly not be happening in this day and age. And so I felt that if I didn’t speak up on the bus at the time (and it turned out that it wasn’t my place, nor did I have to – quite rightly, the driver did so), the least I could do was recount the event on here and spread more awareness that these attitudes still exist in our country and are very much alive in everyday life and situations. This needs to change, and this entry is my little contribution; in my forthcoming job as a Personal Tutor at Cirencester College, one of the things I may well have to do in both interviews and group sessions is work on challenging racial stereotypes and breaking down cultural barriers and misconceptions.

Funnily enough, only earlier my nan and I were discussing the nature of football fans (topical considering that it is currently the World Cup). English fans, deservedly or undeservedly, have a reputation for being violent, thuggish and neanderthal-like throughout Europe and possibly worldwide. At the bar on Friday night, there was a fair amount of brainless chanting, stomping and cursing; but then, England did play poorly and I suppose that if so many people are passionate about this, it amasses a certain amount of volume. I personally don’t like that kind of behaviour, but in itself it’s not racist; it’s only when it either causes damage or turns nasty against other ethnicities, races or against people of other countries that it’s inexcusable. Nevertheless, I believe in conducting myself in a dignified way at all times whenever and wherever possible; by living up to hooligan stereotypes, England fans only propagate this image of themselves nationally and internationally; it’s not vogue and it doesn’t do the country or the sport any favours. What’s more, my nan made a very good point that why do many England fans only support England during the football; if they really liked football, why do they not watch or show any interest in the matches involving other countries? Is it about the sport, or is it about the country? If it is about the country, why act so intimidating when watching the football (as opposed to other sports)? Surely this only sends out the wrong kind of message, a bad example to everyone – that this is how England fans behave, and that this country accepts that behaviour as tolerable and normal for football fans towards each other, and towards other people both from this country and from outside it? I know that there are plenty of people who support England in the World Cup who don’t act this way – a lot of my friends fall under this category – and if I were them I would be somewhat embarrassed and angry that this reputation precedes me. Everyone is entitled to behave in their own way, but I really wish we considered the feelings and cultures of others more than we do.

A final anecdote, in case I sound holier than thou – I’m not perfect. When I was 12 years old, I once used a racial slur – I am ashamed to say. Even more stupidly, it was towards a friend of mine whom I had known for 7 or 8 years by that time; he was acting in a very irritating way during a DT lesson, and out of sheer frustration and for pure shock value, I told him to “shut up you Paki”. Now, I am not racist nor have I ever been – so why portray myself in that way? Even though I was a child, I knew better before and after that event, and yet I did it. It had the desired effect, but I belittled myself by doing it, and my friend (to his credit) handled it very classily by laughing and saying in response to my immediate apology: “Um, no offence taken because I am Indian so that’s not what I am”. His response made me feel all the more ashamed because not only had I attempted to use a racist expression in order to shut him up, I had used it in an incorrect context; it showed up my foolish behaviour for what it was. Our friendship did not suffer for it; in fact I believe that the event was all but forgotten by breaktime, but it taught me a valuable lesson: that kind of behaviour is never acceptable, never appropriate, and never necessary. I apologised profusely and he forgave me, but even recalling that incident makes me feel ashamed 12 years on; I was old enough to know better, and the lessons I learned as a result of that event are the redeeming factor; I have never thought or acted in that way since, and I am now in a position of responsibility to challenge others who do so. During a practice day, I successfully challenged one young person’s attitude to immigrants and the labour market; during my job at Cirencester, I anticipate doing this kind of thing more. In this blog entry, I have also tried to challenge this behaviour. Thankyou for reading.

The last 8 months have represented the happiest period in my life that I can remember. I’ve grown so much as a person, I have made some terrific friends, I have started the longest relationship of my life to date, I have lost weight, I have tattoos (it’s my most recent tattoo‘s one-month anniversary today!) and I have finally started learning to drive again. It’s like I was in a chrysalis up until this point, and now I’m finally starting to spread my wings.

However, I can slowly but surely feel that happiness starting to fade a bit. Perhaps it’s growing pains, because in December I had a tough couple of weeks – maybe I just need to ride it out. I still have all the things I named above, so I can’t really complain too much. But my growing discontent I think is largely due to the fact that I’ve not had instant success when applying for jobs. I haven’t had an interview out of the six jobs I’ve applied to so far. I won’t give up – I am committed to this new careers guidance career, I want to make a difference in other people’s lives, to young people. And I want to carve out my own life, get a car, get a job, get a place to live. I can’t do any of those things without the finances that come from a well-paying job. So I really need this, and although I’ve had my applications checked and approved my tutors, and my CV was given a glowing review by the UWE Careers Service, I guess it won’t come that easy.

So here’s the part where I start to connect my life at the moment with the song above. Listen to the words, and things will make more sense. I was complaining to Mike about the fact that I have yet to secure an interview for any jobs, and he said to me “Well, I am sure there’s nothing wrong with your applications and it’s probably bad luck, nothing personal, but I don’t know if we have the skills for some of the jobs you applied for”. In other words, try not to worry, but don’t apply for such weird stuff. But I thought that I had a good shot at being capable of the jobs I went for, and the fact I was able to fill out the application without really questioning it means that I didn’t really think that the jobs I applied for were that leftfield.

Then I bumped into Henna (from the Perfume Shop) and her friends in the uni café, and after chatting for a while, one of them turns to me and says “So you did languages at Oxford, why on earth aren’t you becoming a teacher?” I explained that even after my teaching assistantship in Spain, and enjoying teaching more than I expected to, I’d never gravitated towards teaching and it wasn’t ever on my radar. Even though I’m now working towards becoming a careers guidance practitioner and working with young people, it feels quite different to me because I’m instrumental in helping a young person shape their entire life and future, rather than wholly responsible for one component of that. I just feel that this fits me better, but perhaps I’m missing a trick? Then I start to think that perhaps I am just running away from the one true vocation I’ve always wanted: music. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to sing, dance, perform, record and entertain. I’m good at it; I’ve won prizes for it. People loved what I did at high school, sixth form and university, and since then I’ve grown as a musician, performer and person. Why aren’t I following my heart? Although I release my music online and I have very positive responses, will that ever truly be enough? By keeping total control, am I sacrificing my dream of making it big? Is being spurned by employers left right and centre a subtle hint that I can’t really avoid my destiny?

I keep wondering if I’m missing something. I’ve had other reasons to lately wonder what the hell is wrong with my brain (read my previous post for some of that), and I don’t consider myself so eccentric or out of the ordinary to have made it to age 24 that I haven’t realised. But sometimes, I look at the way things are and just think, what is going on? Am I on another planet? I do often think I’m an alien, from another galaxy: in Kingswood, I seem to dress like nobody else, have desires for things that just pass everyone else by. In my family, I have different aims, different values. I seem to have been only partly informed by my upbringing, and a lot by the media, and my parents say that I am 10% of them, and 90% of something mysterious and random. Where do I get it from, who am I, and when I find out, where do I go from there? I am glad I am my own person and I wouldn’t change that for anything, but sometimes it gets a bit lonely out here.